by Glen Cook
The stone of the modern fortress was soft. It was dirty. It showed severe weathering. Brother Candle doubted that it would last another hundred years.
Metrelieux reflected the nature of the man who occupied it. So the folk of Khaurene said, who knew him as the Great Vacillator.
Tormond IV just never seemed to get around to doing the big things.
Tormond was loved by the people of the Connec, as much for what he did not get around to as for what he did.
Tormond did not involve himself in the lives of his people. The people of the Connec found that an endearing trait in a ruling duke.
Tormond's father and grandfather had set the precedent. Though the grandfather (also Tormond, the third duke of that name) had gone crusading as a young man. His grandfather had been one of the founders of the crusader states of Kagure and Groves, which, in forms much diminished by Indala al-Sul Halaladin, survived today. Ruled by princes, nominated by the Brotherhood of War, and confirmed by all the more recent Patriarchs.
Brother Candle came up to the barbican gate of Metrelieux. Two sleepy, overweight, and elderly guards were all that stood between the fortress and invasion. They observed sporadic foot traffic from beneath a portcullis that, in all probability, would not come down in an emergency.
No one living could recall the last time the fortress had closed its gates.
There was fear in the streets today, though. The folk of Khaurene sensed that centuries of peace and prosperity were in peril. The people were troubled by a failed attempt on the life of Immaculate II, the anti-Patriarch.
Rumors in the street said that, through great good fortune and the grace of God, assassins intent on murdering the prelate had been overwhelmed by Immaculate's Braunsknechts Guards. There was talk of miracles and divine intervention. The killers should not have failed.
Sublime V, was, of course, the chief candidate for villain behind the crime. Though, naturally, Sublime would deny all responsibility.
The guards at the gate asked him what he wanted.
"I'm Brother Candle. The Duke…"
"Eh. Ye're late, sair. Himself pro'ly guv up on ye comin'." The heavier guard spoke a dialect used way out west, possibly from beyond the River Payme in Tramaine. "Come wi' me, sair."
Brother Candle asked, "What brought you to Khaurene?"
"Khaurene were where I was when I figured out I were ta ald ta be an adventurer anymore." Adventurer being the common euphemism for mercenary soldier. "An' I shoulda done 'er twen'y years sooner. The Duke, he bees a good man ta work far."
"I hear that everywhere." Brother Candle eventually left the guard with a blessing, at his request.
The Patriarch was right. They were everywhere.
Brother Candle passed through dusty halls where, it seemed, no effort had been made to keep house since the current reign began.
Tormond had unusual priorities, it seemed.
Tormond of Khaurene was a balding, graying, gaunt man in his early fifties. Handsome and vain in his youth, Tormond had lost interest in his appearance when he lost Artesia, his Duchess, in childbirth at the age of forty-four, four years past. The child was both deformed and stillborn. Every Connecten who put words into the mouth of God had something to say about that
Tormond disdained them all.
The Duke had aged terribly. His gray eyes were haunted.
"Charde ande Clairs," Tormond said, leaving a clutch of nobles to greet the Perfect.
"Just Brother Candle these days, Your Lordship."
"It must be true, what they say about you people drinking the blood of virgins. You don't look a year older."
"You flatter me, Your Lordship. My bones feel like the bones of an octogenarian. My joints creak and groan any time I bend over. My best years are behind me, alas."
Duke Tormond continued his own thought. "I, on the other hand, have aged for both of us. I'm so tired, Charde. Since I lost Artesia I wake up already weary of the world and its trials."
Had this been anyone other than Tormond, Brother Candle would now witness the peace to be found amongst the Seekers After Light But this was Tormond IV, beloved by his people, whose only male child had been stillborn. Whose most likely successor was Count Raymone Garete of Antieux, a friend of the Seekers but barely out of his teens and a ferocious hothead. Count Raymone suffered from the unfortunate delusion of an independent Connec allied with and protected by King Peter of Navaya in nearby Direcia.
Brother Candle said, "Send a courier to Fleaumont. The nuns can provide you an herbal remedy that will have you stamping the earth like a young stallion again in three months."
"Ah. Your wife is there these days, isn't she?"
"That's where she took her orders."
"I'll do that. You chose the perfect moment to arrive. I suppose that's why they call you Perfect Master." Tormond's sense of humor was not entirely dead. When Brother Candle did not correct him, he went on. "My sister is here." He indicated the group he had departed. Among them was a handsome woman in her early thirties.
“Pardon my brash observation, Your Lordship, but she's become quite a striking woman."
Isabeth was twenty-one years younger than Tormond. She was more like an indulged daughter than a little sister.
"I didn't know she was visiting."
"Officially, she's not. Officially, she's in Oranja, running the state while Peter besieges Camarghara. Please don't tell anyone that you saw her."
"Of course. If that's what you want."
"It is. Come over and sit with us."
Brother Candle followed the Duke to a table where the Queen of Navaya had just settled with six older men. One was a Dainshau. Two were Devedians. Of those two, one's dress suggested that he had come from Direcia, perhaps accompanying Isabeth. The other, named Michael Carhart, was a Devedian religious scholar of considerable substance and Khaurene's senior Devedian.
Of the remaining men, two were Episcopal priests and one looked like a professional soldier. Brother Candle recognized none of them.
Once Brother Candle and the Duke seated themselves, there were no empty chairs. Brother Candle said, "I presume that I'm the last to arrive. So what's the occasion for such a distinguished assembly?"
Tormond said, "A communication from the Patriarch. Sublime, not Immaculate."
Brother Candle surveyed the others. How had Isabeth gotten here so fast?
"Isabeth was here when the letter arrived. She came because King Peter had heard from the Patriarch earlier, on a related matter."
"I see."
"Sublime has commanded me, as Duke of the End of Connec, to rid the province of all heretics and unbelievers. He's done that before, but never backed by the threat of force. As always, he didn't specify who the offenders might be."
One Episcopal priest muttered, "The man is an idiot"
The other priest glared.
The first said, "Does he suppose Johannes would let him get away with that?"
The man who looked like a soldier said, "The message seems timed to arrive right after Immaculate's assassination. That failed. So the threat has no substance."
Queen Isabeth said, "Sublime presumes too much. He believes his own propaganda. His grasp on reality has become suspect."
Brother Candle turned to Duke Tormond for further explanation.
Tormond said, "The fool ordered Peter to ready his forces for an invasion of the Connec."
"Peter of Navaya?" That did indicate a serious disconnect with reality. Why would Sublime think that Peter would abandon the Reconquest to attack his wife's brother? Also, while Peter was a devout Chaldarean, he was tolerant. He did not
persecute the minorities within his own kingdom. Not even Pramans, so long as his own suzerainty remained unchallenged. Hell, rumor had it that Peter's queen was a Maysalean heretic herself. And there were more Maysaleans there than anywhere outside the Connec, except the rump Praman mercantile republic of Platadura, a port on the Direcian coast of the Mother Sea just beyond the eastern coastal end of the Verses Mountai
ns.
Brother Candle suggested, "King Peter now regrets that his father shifted his allegiance from Viscesment to Brothe."
Queen Isabeth confessed, "He did that only because a few important vassals insisted. And they still do."
The military man asked, "Will they make war on fellow Chaldareans?"
"No, Sir Eardale. Our lords are of one mind militarily. The Reconquest. They won't respond to Sublime's call. They all have ties with our Connecten families. But someone else certainly will respond if called."
"Who?” Tormond asked.
"Arnhand, brother. Those people are all thieves."
"Arnhand has its hands full with Santerin."
"No one else has the manpower and moral flexibility. Consider helping make sure the conflict with Santerin stays hot."
"Why are we here?" Brother Candle asked.
"Because your peoples are the ones it's going to happen to if Sublime forces the issue. Father Clayto, here, has condemned Brothe though he's an adherent of the Brothen Patriarchy. Bishop LeCroes, though, is teetering."
Absurd. Brother Candle did not know the man but knew the name. LeCroes was Immaculate's bishop in Khaurene, where the Episcopal population favored the anti-Patriarch.
Father Clayto was critical of Brothe and what Brothe wanted to do in the Connec. For that he had received severe reprimands. Sublime had demoted him to assistant pastor in one of Khaurene's poorest parishes.
The righteous never go unpunished.
Tormond said, "I want to know where each of you will stand if Sublime does try to make war."
Michael Carhart said, "That man doesn't care about heresy or dissent Greed drives him. He means to plunder the Connec to finance a war against Calzir and another crusade into Suriet. The Holy Lands." Suriet being the name of the Holy Lands in Melhaic, a language spoken amongst the Wells of Ihrian and by the Devedians of the latest diaspora. "He's been trying to make forced loans from us in the Episcopal States. In Sonsa the Brotherhood of War tried to destroy and plunder the entire Devedian community."
In truth, whenever the Brothen Church gained power, laws controlling the activities of non-Chaldareans soon took effect. And those, invariably, worked to the detriment of the larger community.
The more educated people in most communities were non-Chaldareans because most Chaldareans of standing disdained literacy. If the Episcopal nobility wanted something written or read, or if they needed accounts kept, they hired some slinking, greedy, hand-wringing Deve to do the job.
Brother Candle said, "You've heard rumors of the synod of the Perfect this spring?"
Several people nodded. The military man shook his head.
Brother Candle continued, "The consensus was that all who follow the Path are required to resist evil actively, even to the extent of countering force with force. If the Patriarch — or anyone else — directly attacks any Seeker After Light for nothing more than the fact that his feet are on the Path, then the Seeker will be absolved of the taint of sin acquired by resisting evil."
Father Clayto asked, "Are you declaring war on me Church?"
"Don't be willfully ridiculous, Father. I said the synod believes that we're morally obligated to fight back if we're attacked. Nobody will be given a dispensation to go to Brothe to root Sublime out and hang him."
Michael Carhart said, “That's an entirely reasonable attitude. The Devedian community will assume the same posture."
Father Clayto snipped, "I suspect the Deves of Sonsa made a similar claim before committing their atrocities there."
Gently, Michael Carhart asked, "How many of those atrocities occurred outside Sonsa's Devedian quarter, Father? How many? Tell me, how many Chaldareans had their homes burned? Explain to me how it is that you people always find your way to the argument that us resisting rape, robbery, and murder is a crime against your god."
Duke Tormond stepped in. "Enough. I just want to know if your peoples will lie down should Sublime actually do something besides talk." Before anyone responded, he continued, "I've sent a deputation to Brothe. Another deputation. Though the first had no impact on Bishop Serifs's bad behavior and the second did nothing but bring back absurd demands. Sir Eardale was part of that mission. He had a good look at Firaldia, the Episcopal States, and Brothe." He pronounced the soldier's name Eh-ahr-dah-lay. "Brothe itself has been demilitarized."
Brother Candle knew the name, if not the man. Sir Eardale Dunn hailed from Santerin, a minor noble banished for reasons known only to himself, his king, and presumably, Duke Tormond. He had been Tormond's leading soldier for two decades, never having had to fight a war. He was not well known outside Metrelieux.
Sir Eardale said, "Sublime's ability to undertake a significant military operation exists entirely inside his own imagination. He believes his own propaganda. God is on his side because he's the Patriarch."
Sir Eardale continued, "Sublime has no troops he could send out on a foreign adventure. Every man he can afford to keep is waiting for Johannes Blackboots to attack. Most of them keeping their boots on at night so they don't have to waste time getting started running if Hansel does strike.
"Meantime, I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you that the Emperor is interested in Calzir. Vondera Koterba, his puppet in Alameddine, is recruiting mercenaries, possibly with an eye to annexing Calzir."
Brother Candle took a moment to consider what he knew of Firaldia. Alameddine would be the Chaldarean kingdom that bordered Praman Calzir, on the north side of the Vaillarentiglia Mountains.
Sir Eardale stopped talking. He devoted himself to one of the large cups of coffee that Tormond himself had prepared while his marshal spoke. The Duke offered the drink all round. No one refused. Not even Brother Candle, who had not taken coffee for decades. "Oh, that's good," he confessed. "I'd forgotten. More than the pleasures of the flesh, the Adversary could use coffee to seduce mortal man."
The Duke asked, "Are we exercising ourselves about nothing? Is the Patriarch just a blowhard?"
Sir Eardale said, "He is, in great part. The problem and danger is that he doesn't know he is. He really thinks that all devout Chaldreans are spoiling for a war against everything non-Chaldarean. But he's wrong. Even the most devout Chaldareans just want to get on with their lives. In peace."
"What about us?" Tormond asked. "Is he likely to carry out his threats against the End of Connec? Can he?"
No one could answer that. Only Sir Eardale had seen what was happening in Brothe. His observation was, "You can't predict what a madman will do."
Father Clayto asked, "Does it matter if Sublime can carry out his threats? A better question is, will he try? I'm afraid that, unfortunately, the answer to that one might be yes."
The Duke asked, "Do you find all this amusing, Charde?"
"Yes. In an irreverent fashion. Though no less frightening, for all that." He explained how a Maysalean could see God as a cruel practical joker in this. Once he finished explaining, he asked, "How will the Emperor react if Sublime launches a crusade against the Connec?"
"Excellent question," Sir Eardale said. "We expect to take that up with the Emperor himself. He'll certainly be interested now that his soldiers have disposed of those assassins who wanted to kill Immaculate."
Brother Candle was intrigued by the incident at Viscesment. Immaculate's defenders must have been forewarned.
Dainshaukin were notoriously quiet and sternly withdrawn from everyday life. Within their own dwindling communities they considered themselves an elder race, the first masters of the transition between the Age of the Gods and the Age of Man. The Dainshau at the table showed a palm.
The Duke identified him. “Tember Remak wishes to speak."
The Dainshau said, “Tember Remak has a question. Where does the Collegium stand in this? Does the Patriarch have their support?"
"They elected him," Father Clayto said.
"That would be a function of bribery and political persuasion. That would mean nothing in the time of the Festival of Hungry Ghosts. We have
seen no evidence that Sublime fronts for the Tyranny of the Night. He is a great blusterer living in Bad Dog Village, not the sweet lord of Once Glance Great Fortune."
Though couched in unfamiliar terms from Dainshaukin parable, the questions were important. If the sorcerers of the Church did not support Sublime his ambitions would be curbed. In particular his intelligence efforts would suffer. Espionage was one area where an alliance with the Instrumentalities of the Night could be very profitable.
"Is there any way to know?" Tormond asked. He peered at Brother Candle.
Brother Candle replied, "Our familiarity with the night is considerably exaggerated, Your Lordship. The fact is, Seekers After Light reject the night when we pledge to follow the Path. That's why we're called Seekers After Light. Some of my colleagues here, though … They probably do roast Chaldarean babies and run naked under the full moon with demons from the Pit." He could not keep a straight face. Father Clayto had denounced the Seekers After Light for those very things.
One by one, each religious leader denied any involvement with the Instrumentalities of the Night. Mostly with good humor.
"So we're blind," Tormond said. "So we have no choice but to sit here and take whatever Fate hands out."
That earned him a clutch of scowls. There was no "fate" involved in the Will of God.
Brother Candle said, "Isn't it always that way in the Connec? Time and fortune have been generous. Never compelling us to bend the knee to the tyranny of the night."
Brother Candle received scowls himself. There was no "fortune" in the Will of God, either.
It was a strange convocation. No one demanded war. Almost everyone pled for peace — while making it plain that there would be no acquiescence if Sublime chose to make war.
The gathering broke up before Brother Candle fully understood what was happening. He suspected that Tormond and Isabeth wanted it that way. The religious leadership was prepared to fight the agents of darkness and forces of oppression. Without Tormond himself having committed passionately to any particular course.
Vacillation and procrastination were Tormond's best-known traits. In the slow-moving world of the Connec doing nothing often proved to be the best way of handling problems.
